ShipRecycling Pages:

10 August 2016

North Korean ship owner slams UN, U.S over scrapping

Statement from the Mu Du Bong's manager
claims sailors not working for the government

The owner of the Mu Du Bong, the North Korean
vessel which will be scrapped by the Mexican government issued a statement
heavily criticizing the move via the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on
Wednesday.

This ship ran aground in Mexico in mid-2014,
but was impounded at the start of the following year by the Mexican authorities.
The ship’s ownership company was sanctioned by the UN due to an earlier weapon
smuggling case in Cuba.

But the statement from the ship’s manager
paid little attention to the Mexican government, instead focusing on the UN
sanctions which led to the seizure. The ship’s manager also seems to claim they
are entitled to compensation for generations from the losses generated by the
asset freeze.

“We solemnly declare that we will certainly
have all spiritual and material losses and damages inflicted upon us by
unreasonable US-manipulated UN ‘resolutions’ paid and have the right to claim
indemnity generation after generation,” the statement reads.

The unnamed manager also says the ship was
engaged in legitimate business activities, and lays the eventual blame at
Washington’s door. The statement adds the Mu Du Bong’s sailors were not
employed by the government.

“All members and sailors of our company who
had been engaged in peaceable and legitimate non-governmental business
activities have suffered untold spiritual and socio-economic losses due to the
illegal ‘sanctions resolutions’ of the UNSC,” the article adds.

The statement is not the first time the
ship’s manager has taken aim at the UN resolutions which call for freezing
assets associated with the sanctioned Ocean Maritime Management (OMM).

But since the last denouncement issued in
August, the Mexican government said it would be scrapping the ship, as the
rusting vessel was becoming a safety and environmental concern.

The sanctions on the Mu Du Bong’s owners were
a result one of Mu du Bong’s sister ships – the Chong Chon Gang – being caught
smuggling weapons through the Panama Canal in 2013.

The subsequent investigations from the UN
Panel of Experts (PoE) have linked OMM to the North Korean government’s sanctions
busting activities.

The Mexican government’s announcement in
April represented the first time a sanctioned North Korean ship has been frozen
and scrapped.

The previous interdiction in the case of the
Chong Chon Gang resulted in the vessel’s release, and more recently a vessel
frozen by the authorities in the Philippines was set free after the ship was
removed from a UN’s blacklist issued as part of the most recent resolution in
March.

According to the NK News ship tracker the Mu
Du Bong is still near in the Mexican port of Tuxpan where it ran aground,
however it has not broadcast any location information since November 2014.